Like many local legends around the country, Kidd Jordan is an immensely talented musician who resisted the urge to move to New York or LA. Based in Baton Rouge/New Orleans, Jordan became a renowned jazz educator with a long tenure at Southern University. So renowned, that his teaching has been documented by 60 Minutes and acknowledged by the French with Knighthood. His resume name checks an embarrassment of greats including Stevie Wonder, Professor Longhair, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Martha and the Vandellas, Ray Charles, Ed Blackwell, Ornette Coleman and Cannonball Adderly.

1999's 2 Days in April documented the unbridled intensity of his playing with old friend Fred Anderson, and new friends William Parker and Hamid Drake, possibly obliterating his lingering anonymity in the process. With the breathtaking Palm of Soul, released on the always essential Aum Fidelity label, Jordan journeys with Parker and Drake as an improvisational trio, six hands, three hearts, sculpting/shaping light. In late 2006, Jordan took a break from salvaging his Katrina ravaged home to talk about the new CD and life in the spontaneous lane.

AAJ: How's the reclamation project going?

KJ: I worked all day today and yesterday, too.

AAJ: How hot is it down there?

KJ: It's very hot. I came away like I could wring the water out of my shirt. That's the nature of the beast, so I just have to deal with it.

AAJ: What's left of the house?

KJ: We're getting all the stuff out of it. They're getting ready to gut it out. They had about four or five feet of water. Cut out the portal, rewire it, but I had so much stuff in my house, I'm just in the process of trying to get all the stuff out that was damaged. I was working a lot, teaching, what have you. My wife had some things in there she didn't want nobody to deal with other than the family, at first. So now that she's got her stuff out, we're going to let other people help us out along with it. There's so many different things that may not look valuable to somebodykeepsakes and things. So that's the process.

AAJ: A year later, huh?

KJ: Yeah, and there isn't but two people on my block that's really done stuff. I was really waiting to see two things: the hurricane season, how it was going to be, and to see if the community was coming back. There isn't but two people come back as yet. Hopefully after this hurricane season, some of them will try to come back. We're going to wait and see what happens this year. The levees really aren't what they say they're supposed to be.

AAJ: Is Southern University up and running again?

KJ: Yeah, they have portable buildings. I worked last semester, but I retired this summer. I gave it up, because we lost the music department, and the only thing I had to do was teach music appreciation. The people who take music appreciation won't even come to those kind of classes. I did it long enough, so I decided to retire.

AAJ: You were born in New Orleans?

KJ: No, I wasn't. I was born in Crowley, Louisiana. That's in Cajun country, southwest Louisiana. At one time it was the rice capital of the world, about two and a half hours from New Orleans. I came up listening to zydeco musiczydeco and blues, when I was a kid.

AAJ: How did you start in music?

KJ: I started in high school. They had a high school band. I started playing saxophone. It got under my skin, so I just kept on dealing with it. I went to Southern University in Baton Rouge. Got my undergraduate degree there.

AAJ: What did you hear at home?

KJ: I used to listen to big band on the radio, and blues people. In high school I heard Charlie Parker, so that was it after I heard him. I guess I was in tenth or eleventh grade when I heard Charlie Parker. And then my brother came home from the war, World War II. He was turned on to some music being in the army, so they were talking about Charlie Parker too. So I finally got to listen a lot to him and Lester Young and some of those people. I really loved their music. They had some terrific blues bands that I would hear. They'd come to your little town, and you could listen to the horn players or whatever. I was just interested in that kind of music.

AAJ: Tell me about college.

KJ: Believe it or not, we were at an all black school, and they didn't want jazz at the school! But we had a swing band, and we would practice on our own. We had charts. We practiced playing some Dizzy Gillespie Big Band things like "Thanks for Coming. A lot of them ooh-bop-shebam things. We'd play for different places, occasionally on the campus. I got tied up with some bands around Baton Rouge. I started making gigs with a dude they called Georgia Williams. His daddy was Clayborn Williams; he had a famous big band at that time. He had a reed section, three or four saxophones, two or three trumpets, trombones. He was one of the better bands around town, and he would use the college students. I got to be a permanent fixture in his band, too. It was a means of me earning some extra money. We had two regular gigs with himI think a Wednesday and a Saturday nightso there were two sure gigs a week. The rest of them, we could be with other people around town if we wanted to.

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Joel Futterman with Kidd Jordan at Vision XI in New York City, June 2006

I grew up listening to my father's Jazz records and listening to radio. My dad was a musician for many years as a vocalist, bassist and drummer. His two uncles played in the Symphony of Reggio Calabria back in Italy

I grew up listening to my father's Jazz records and listening to radio. My dad was a musician for many years as a vocalist, bassist and drummer. His two uncles played in the Symphony of Reggio Calabria back in Italy. So music and jazz specifically have been a part of me since I was born. I love and perform in all styles of music from around the world. Improvisation in jazz is what drew me in, and still does as well as other genres that feature improvisation. A group of great musicians expressing themselves as one is the hallmark of great jazz and in fact all great music.